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The Baruch Index of Corporate Political Disclosure

The Baruch Index of Corporate Political Disclosure measures a company's willingness to disclose and be transparent about its corporate political activity:

Ease with which someone can find the relevant materials on the corporate website;

What policies, procedures, and corporate governance structures are in place and disclosed; and

What the corporation says about who and what it gives to, and how those donations are made.

In January 2010, the United States Supreme Court rendered its decision in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case. That verdict allows corporations and others to be much more active in election campaigns, through methods that are publicly disclosed as well as methods that are both undisclosed and unlimited.

Beginning in January 2011, The Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity used the Baruch Index to track corporate disclosure of political activity of members of the S&P 100. Results can be viewed here, where companies are sorted from Transparent to Opaque.

*This work was supported in part by a grant from The City University of New York PSC-CUNY Research Award Program. No corporate monies have been solicited or accepted in producing this research.